Back in 1994, my inquiry into the claims of the Catholic Church took a decisive turn. I transitioned from reading books in the safety of my own home to visiting actual parishes and signing up for RCIA. At this point, I found myself bombarded with kitsch. I didn’t know enough about the Mass itself to…
A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when…
Is the recent “attack” on Vatican II a “crisis moment” for traditionalists? Are we turning on a legitimate and laudable Council instead of rightly directing our ire at the inept leadership that has followed it and betrayed it? That has been the line of conservatives for a long time: a “hermeneutic of continuity” combined with…
At the Pentecost Octave, the Church celebrates an end and a beginning. It is the close of the Paschal cycle, which celebrates the close of the Old Covenant. This is the beginning of the Time after Pentecost, celebrating the birth of the Church under the New Covenant not of the letter, but of the Spirit…
Blind optimism and bleak pessimism both inflict havoc. An optimist opens the windows of the Church to the world to allow in the “fresh” air. As the stench and filth of the world choke out the life of the Church, the pessimist then declares that everyone and everything will perish. “Things cannot get any worse,”…
This is the second of two related articles on whether doctrine can change. In the second, we explore doctrine in the broad sense, as “Church teaching.” Can doctrine change? Depending on whom you ask, you will get a different answer. Though some are mistaken, many are simply using different definitions. They could be speaking about…
This is the first of two related articles on whether doctrine can change. In the first, we examine doctrine from the strict point of view, side by side with dogma. What does the Church really teach? Since Pope John Paul II, media and laity alike have been interested in and sometimes confused by the pope’s…
The pandemic pandemonium of the coronavirus — in its volatile mixture of undeniable physical evils and the superimposed moral evils of social engineering by political elites only too happy to take advantage of a global train wreck — has brought before Christians once again the ancient question of why the good and the wicked alike…
Professor Richard Dawkins’s latest book is entitled Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide. It is divided into two parts, the first being, after a fashion, theological, and the second claiming to be biological and scientific. In the theological section, the author presents his philosophical, theological, and moral arguments against the existence, justice, and goodness of God;…
“Mom, why are you cutting a piece of the roast off?” asks a little girl, watching her mother place a roast beef into a roasting pan. “Because that’s what my mom did.” “Grandma,” asks the girl later, “why did you cut a piece of the roast off before cooking it?” “Because that’s what my mom…
How long ago it seems now, after six and a half grueling, mind-bending years under Pope Francis, coupled with the shock, from which one will never recover, of Pope Benedict’s abdication. It was like transitioning from a post-doctoral theology seminar to a multicultural kindergarten. But I still remember it clearly: the Eleventh Ordinary Synod of…
